Europe is the 'new emerging market' for media: Discovery CEO

There is no better time to be in the media business than right now, and the biggest winners will be companies that both own content and take advantage of key geographies, David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery Communications told "Squawk on the Street" on Tuesday.

"This big fight of the pipe versus the content—who is going to be the winner? Ten years ago there was a real question," Zaslav said. " If you look at the history of it, in almost every case, the great content has won. In the end, we're getting paid more for our content. Bigger and better content is more valuable."

Zaslav said his strategy has been to focus on content ownership and to drive value regardless of how the delivery evolves.

"The way you deliver content is irrelevant to us," he said. "We still believe that channels matter, but more importantly, channels are made up of shows.

"If the world changes and people start to want to consume just shows, which I don't see happening in the next couple of years, we have a lot of great shows and characters that people care about, then we have a lot of value."

Zaslav also highlighted Discovery's success over the past two years in the Western European market. Though it has been a particularly tough time, he said, the company has grown nearly 20 percent in the region. As a result, he views the area as "a new emerging market" for entertainment, and Discovery has been buying and developing channels in Europe as well as in the U.S.

On Tuesday, Discovery Communications reported second-quarter profit that missed analyst estimates—despite both rising profit and revenue—as it recorded higher operating expenses at its U.S. cable unit.

The media company, which owns cable networks such as Animal Planet and TLC, said net income rose to $300 million, or 82 cents per share, compared with $293 million or 77 cents per share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, its EPS of 83 cents per share missed analyst estimates by 7 cents.